At present, conventional lighting devices such as halogen lights are often replaced by more advanced lighting devices such as LED based lighting devices having an increased functionality.
In order to obtain this increased functionality, LED based lighting devices are often controlled by particular communication protocols such as DALI or DMX which are provided via a communications bus.
At present, various communication interfaces exist for controlling various types of lighting devices which renders retrofitting an existing installation to a different type of communication protocol or lighting device often difficult and expensive.
As such, efforts have been made to adjust a communication interface such that various types of communication protocols can be applied.
In this respect, reference can be made to US 2010/0102747 describing a communication interface which can accept both 0-10V or DALI signals as input signals.
The DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) interface is specified in the IEC 60929 standard for fluorescent lamp ballasts.
On the DALI system a variant is known with which it is possible to use the DALI interface either as a conventional DALI interface (providing signals according to the DALI protocol) or as a switch interface. In case of the system operating as ‘switch interface’, the 2 DALI wires are connected to a mains connection (e.g. 230 VAC) via a switch. Pressing the switch will cause the DALI interface to produce 100 Hz digital pulses to the lighting fixture. The software inside the lighting fixture is written such that it can distinguish between a DALI interface and the ‘switch interface’.
In case of the DALI interface it will function according to the DALI protocol standard.
In case of the ‘switch interface’, it will count numbers of 100 Hz pulses during certain periods of time.
At present, it can be stated that the flexibility of known communication interfaces w.r.t. accepting different types of input signals, is however still limited.
As such, it is an object of the present invention to improve this flexibility.